VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY'S LITERARY JOURNAL

because I fear.

By Emani Brown aka lulo.

my boyfriend knows of the issues I haveand supports me the best he can.and it’s not that I can’t tell him anythingbut I can’t tell him everythingI don’t want to scare him.

I don’t speak about the racing thoughts &suicidal tendencies because his mind is too pure to corrupt with worry. I don’t tell him about the impulses and purposeful starvation about the want to throw away every pill like it’s a grade school crush about how each day my mind goes blank and I become numb becausethis mental disease is the only thing tostay by my side.

He says he’s here through thick and thinbut he doesn’t know that I still craveto be in andif he was to notice that I was pushing himaway for the sake of my insanityhe’d leave my life and prove the darknessright.

I don’t want the demons on the wallmocking me.

That’s why he only knows about my illnessand not its severitybecause if he knew that it pushes me toleave himI fear that he’d really leave me.